OBITUARY

Evening Star, Issue 18160, 28 December 1922, Page 4

OBITUARY

PROFESSOR SALE. A London cablegram, dated December 27, received this morning announces tha death of George Samuel Sale, formerly classics professor at the Otago University. He was a great man amongst the great men of his day in Dunedin, and lha memory will be very widely respected. He was born in 1831, at Rugby, and was educated at Rugby School and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. He took his degree of M.A. in 1854, with first-class honors in classics and second-class honors in mathematics. In 1856 he was elected Fellow of Trinity. In 1857 lie was appointed lecturer in classics. In 1860, owing to ill-health, he left England by the ship Minerva, landing at Lyttelton in February of 1861. In May of the same year he became the first editor of the ‘ Press ’ newspaper. At the end of 1861 he went to the Otago goldfields, and for about nine months was engaged in mining. Returning to Canterbury ini 1863, he was appointed Provincial Treasurer and Receiver of Land Revenue. In April, 1865, at the request of the Provincial Government of Canterbury, Mr Sale went to Hokitika and took charge of the West Coast goldfield as Commissioner and agent for the Provincial Government. It was whilst in that position that the miners and bushmen of the district dubbed him “King Sale.” After the separation of Westland from the province of Canterbury he returned to England, and entered Lincoln Inn. with a view to being called to the English Bar. But in 1870, the Otago University having been established;. Mr Sale became a candidate for the chair of to which he was appointed. Ha held that office with great -profit to the University and distinction to himself, till the end of 1907, when he resigned. About the beginning of 1908 he went to England, and from that time onward made his residence in London. In 1918 he became seriously ill, but, nursed by bis wife, he made" quite a wonderful recovery. In 1874 lie was manned to Miss Margaret M. Fortune, a Canadian young lady. Of the marriage there were two sons and two daughters. Dr John Sale died hi New Zealand during the influensa epidemic. The other son, Mr Geoffrey Sale, is a mining engineer in South Africa. Miss Molly Sale (Mrs Covie) died in America. Miss Margaret Sale, who was at last advices living with her parents, will bo remembered) as a very promising amateur violin player. . Of Professor Sale as a teacher, one of his old pupils says: “Ho was a very inspiring man to bo under. His big personality stamped itself on all his pupils, more or less, particularly those who took the subject to a high . standard. Their .regard for him was not merely reverential, but affectionale for they got through the extenor of the man, which to the junior pupils may have seemed somewhat forbidding. ’